Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (1985)

Preliminary: Watching any of the longplays confused me, I read that it's about simply killing the enemies and moving on, but the longplays made it seem like there was so much more to it. On first playtest, as usual with NES games, I'm super impressed with the responsiveness of the controls. However, a bit disappointed in the jump mechanic and collision masks of the gaps, reminded me a bit more of microcomputers than the arcade-level quality I've come to expect from NES. Hm, 24 levels (tho it loops after that ugh)... I don't necessarily love it so far, but 24 levels should be doable since I got through 3 in a mere 10ish minutes. (Oh, hm, another site says 21. Let's see)

Look: 7/10 For the most part just okay. I do like the main ninja character. And I love the one-eyed enemies after you've jumped on em lol. Not that the look was great but I'm surprised to see so many retrospective reviewers call it ugly.

Sound: 7/10 Nice jingle when you successfully did a Bonus Stage, and technically the main jingle is good but dang does it get repetitive! The fact I didn't completely mute this despite being NES-and-earlier saved it from a 6 but uh, it really deserves a 6 or -/nil and not counted.

Play: 7/10 Super grateful for the fight-back mechanic and the power-ups. And I always am grateful of any shooter or action game where you can shoot away projectiles, allows for last-minute escapes. I do wish the jump mechanic was a bit smoother, but I got used to it quickly (mostly thanks to its clunky similarity to the microcomputer platformers heh). I'm glad you can throw shuriken mid-jump, but again, I wish the jump mechanic were smoother and I wish you didn't stop walking when throwing a shuriken. Not the smartest AI with the enemies, but what can one expect. And I don't really get why the Spirits only spawn after I jump or move around, not necessarily a set time after killing an enemy. Hm. Maybe that was intentional?

Pro-tip: to stun the enemies without relying on the chance of them falling through one of your holes instead of jumping over it, jump on top of their head! (and don't just use that with the later hard enemies, even the early Penguin enemies this helps so much). Oh it seems the one-eyed enemies might be outright immune, even from the back, unless they're stunned. (and this mechanic proved to be quite disappointing, it eliminated the fun of mid-jump shuriken throws since they're invulnerable anyway, same with behind the back attacks etc etc... hmm well maybe not maybe they just take multiple hits then? Either way best to stun them. When you drink an invisibility potion you can still manage to kill them with lots of Shuriken, not sure if it's from how many you throw or if it's from a certain timing.)

Yeah indeed, the jump feature is critical for dodging projectiles, stunning enemies, and landing shots in the bonus areas. Don't miss it. Even if it is clunky :-p Speaking of clunky, some of the collision masks made no sense--how you'd often fly through the bottom of platforms when bounced off an enemy. And the way you turned around to throw your shuriken was super clunky too. And the edges of platforms you'd fall through even if you landed on them... Why do I push through these mediocre games lol.

Feel: 7/10 I love the Speed power-up and the Frog power-up :-p Great power-ups in general tbh, one of my first complaints was I wish I threw my shuriken farther, welp turns out there's a power-up for that ha. Etc etc. The way the character sort of, um, dances or something when idle is super cute too :-p

It really takes its time between scenes and starting up the new scene.... could've cut a lot of that out ha. And I sure wish the jingle changed up. Especially since they wanted you to play it loopingly for high score...

Attachment: 7/10 No matter how much arcade games have grown on me, the drive for the highest score will never appeal to me. These bonus rounds simply provide a chance to get a higher score (tho I love how you access the bonus rounds, I wont spoil that since it's pretty easy to stumble upon), and the game lacks a set ending--all about getting the highest score. So, as usual, I only had the drive to play through all the unique levels at most.

As good as the game was (in spite of those annoying fireballs and bombs from what I thought were the good guys up top? lol), at a point I was starting to feel like the gaps between levels weren't worth waiting through and that the Spirits weren't gonna be worth collecting. They just make my score higher anyway right? And at a point I just wanted to finish the 21-or-24 levels. Not such a good sign. And yet, I was pushing through, and choosing this instead of some OSRS slayer streaming, so that is a good sign. Hm

Welp yep as much fun as I was having (lol those later like, paper box thing enemies? super cute), I stopped going for the feathers for bonus stages (since it's just for high scores anyway) and the Spirits. If I get them conveniently, great. Otherwise, just focused on finishing the level. I feel like I'm watching the in-between-scenes screens more than the actual game at this point.... Indeed, at a point I started outright avoiding the bonus feathers and score power-ups that take forever to be added and the Spirits lol. As tacky as it was, I kinda liked when the enemies became randomized in scenes 19-21, brought a bit of fresh air to an otherwise very monotonous feeling part of the game with the same sets of enemies repeated. It's like they ran out of ideas but wanted to have a few more unique level sets heh. So it seemed to be like there were 20 unique levels, tho I didn't notice until scene 21 that I was already playing a repeat level setup and enemy assortment. I stopped as this Scene 23 screen popped up heh

And my final score as that same enemy assortment lined up... can you imagine playing through these... why would anyone do the loop... Then again, I just played this game for over an hour heh..

Completion: All unique levels, stopped at Scene 23, Score 227,190 Playtime: ~ 1h 10m